Sure, but as a society we've already legitimized lying, in form of e.g. ad industry, and at the same time, we're in total denial of that fact.

I regret my parents never taught me we're living in softly adversarial world. People are not going to kill you, but businesses are out to fleece you.

Tell me about it. That point when you realise that fiction and comedy really are not exaggerating all that much, if at all.

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made." - Groucho Marx

See also; the appointed Liars of the Zoon tribe of Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

Theranos is an example of commercial dishonesty leading to the top of political power and even snares people such as Mattis, who is possibly the only individual in the current US executive with any kind of reputation for being honest.

And the apparent message from that debacle isn't; "be honest", rather it is; "being dishonest nets billions, try not to get caught though".